We are living in interesting times. Witness the Brexit vote in Great Britain, the political instability and hateful political rhetoric in the United States, the possibility of escalating conflict in the Korean peninsula, the anti-Putin protests across Russia, and on and on and on. Sometimes, it seems that this chaos is also occurring in our daily business lives. But is it, really?
I find that quite often, it’s necessary to take a deep breath and step back from all this instability – as well as the seemingly endless barrage of e-mails, rush print jobs, meetings and other daily challenges. One of the purposes of this magazine has always been to bring you the latest news, trends, new products, industry events and so on. But I’ve always felt that our mission goes much deeper than that. We’re also here to give you suggestions on how to make your business day – and life – much easier and more hopeful. That’s why we also publish articles regularly on time management, sales, personal relationships, accessing government funding – even a recently concluded three-part series on coping with e-mail ‘overload’.
We also publish stories of printers who inspire us and give us hope. These chronicle the quiet successes of so many in our industry that often don’t get the credit they deserve. These are the print shops, OEMs, organizations and others who, day in day out, are winning life’s battles. We do it because it’s good reporting and it’s makes for interesting reading. But we also do it to give our readers hope. Sure, we can concentrate on the few things that don’t go right in our industry, but what good would that do? In my estimation, none!
Bottom line: as has been said by so many so often, we’re all better when we work as a team. We’re all better when we stick to the middle of the road and don’t veer too far left, or too far right. As far as this magazine, we’ll continue to bring you all the news, new products, special events and helpful columns and advice. But we’ll always present them in an upbeat way.
Finally, as we’ll be attending this year’s PRINT 17 in Chicago and SGIA Expo in New Orleans, you can expect previews and wrap-ups in our printed and online editions. Enjoy your summer and…..
As always, stay positive and stay focused.